Reviews
Gary Naylor
A flea bites a rat which spooks a horse which kicks a man and… an empire falls?James Fritz has won writing awards already in his developing career, but he has set himself quite the challenge to weave a thread that can bear that narrative weight. Two and a half hours later in this retelling of the late 19th-century Cleveland Street scandal, the empire survives, the fall guy takes the inevitable tumble and we’re a little punchdrunk. Here is a play that beats you up with its sheer volume of artistic choices but also dips into stretches of unnecessary exposition that drain energy away: there’s a Read more ...
Helen Hawkins
Mustapha Matura’s 1981 play, Meetings, is still a knockout. Supply the characters with mobile phones and it could be set in the present day. What makes it topical is the central issue it chews on: is the modern world all it’s cracked up to be, or is progress a toxic brand? Jean, an advertising executive who loves all things contemporary, including fast food, is married to a businessman, Hugh, who is increasingly hankering for the tastes of his youth – swordfish in yellow gravy, okra and rice, manicou, that kind of thing. The culinary quest that begins in their snazzy Trinidad Read more ...
Jonathan Geddes
When Maisie Peters first appeared onstage she loudly asked if the crowd were ready for “the best night of their lives”, and given the youthful nature of the audience the ensuing 80 minutes might have lived up to the hype. There were screams, hysteria and, in one case, an emotional lass getting on her phone to tell her significant other that hearing break-up songs brought home how much they appreciated them.There were a lot of those songs, in fairness. When Peters observed that she was seeking to provide music from different eras of her life it was easy to raise an eyebrow, given she’s still Read more ...
Helen Hawkins
The RSC apparently has a hit on its hands with its West End transfer of Hamnet. Box office demand has already prompted an extension of the run by six weeks, until February 2024.The draw is presumably the bestselling 2020 novel by Maggie O’Farrell on which the play is based, which is a commandingly and inventively written unfolding of the Shakespeare family’s poignant story over almost two decades, at the heart of which is Agnes Hathaway’s relationship with Will Shakespeare and their three children, who include the Hamnet of the title.O’Farrell maps out this story in chronological zigzags, Read more ...
Cheri Amour
For some, Blink 182 will always be those butt-naked dudes goofing around with a hot nurse on the streets of LA. For others, it’s the sound of a Frankenstein threesome they greedily embraced in 2016 when members Mark Hoppus and Travis Barker legally separated from guitarist and vocalist Tom DeLonge, bringing in fellow indie stalwart and Alkaline Trio vocalist Matt Schiber for the first new music in five years. California (and 2019’s follow-up Nine) might’ve sated the stalwarts. Yet emo kids everywhere were still chanting “Where are you?” to the man himself.Turns out the guitarist was a little Read more ...
David Nice
The word “great” is going to be stated, or implied, rather a lot here. Christine Rice is, after all, one of the world’s great mezzos, and her partnership with Julius Drake has long been something to seek out at every opportunity. Add to the mix a young viola player already in the top league, Timothy Ridout, and a programme featuring music by an individual voice among composers, Rebecca Clarke, and there was reason enough to travel to Oxford yesterday.Hopes were movingly rewarded. But other riches emerged, thanks to the rainbow net spread wide of what is now the Oxford International Song Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Well, this is lovely. Pearlies opens with “I Was Miles Away”, a puffball of a sonic cloud which marries twinkling electronica with guitar-led shoegazing. It has a familial resemblance with the sort of thing perfected by Sweden’s I Break Horses, but lacks the frostiness. Here, there is a glow akin to that of a fire’s embers. Next, the vaguely bossa nova-ish and similarly exquisite “Bend the Round”.Emma Anderson was one-half of the front-line of Lush and her contemplative yet instant first solo album is brim-full of such gems. Take, at random, “Xanthe” with its giallo soundtrack undertone. What Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Exactly 40 years since Madonna’s first UK hit, “Holiday”, was skittering about the Top Five, she launches her global Celebration Tour at the O2.It is spectacle on the very grandest scale. In the latter half, following a video montage of tabloid controversies that pursued her career, and, to some extent, made it, a banner headline flashes “Age is a sin”. Madonna responds, “The most controversial thing I’ve ever done is to stick around.” The most successful female artist of all time is here to refute the sniping.The show is biographical concept album as dance theatre. It begins, as Madonna did Read more ...
David Kettle
An all-female production of Bram Stoker’s Dracula – well, kind of – that transplants the novel’s more local action to the northeast of Scotland, and finds a bloody new calling for one of its less ostentatious characters? Elgin-born writer Morna Pearson is asking a lot from Stoker purists in her bold reimagining of the iconic, endlessly retold tale for the National Theatre of Scotland.For some, truth be told, Dracula: Mina’s Reckoning might push their patience and credulity a bit too far. But ultimately, this is an ambitious, highly effective and gleefully provocative rethink of the classic Read more ...
Sarah Kent
A polar bear stands guard over the seal pup it has just killed (main picture). How could photographer, Hiroshi Sugimoto have got so close to a wild animal at such a dangerous moment? Even if he had a powerful telephoto lens, he’d be risking life and limb. And what a perfect shot! Every hair on the bear’s body is crystal clear; in fact, it looks as if her fur has just been washed and brushed.Once you start peering more closely, other anomalies begin to emerge. The sea ice looks suspiciously like expanded polystyrene dusted with flour rather than snow, and the distant ice hills are clearly Read more ...
Jenny Gilbert
On the whole the Bible is not big on sex and sensuality, with the exception of one very short book in the Old Testament. The Song of Solomon – aka Song of Songs – is a hymn to carnal pleasure, one whose vivid descriptions of perfect flesh and brimming wine flagons have divided religious scholars for centuries.The New York-based choreographer Pam Tanowitz turned to the text when looking to deepen her understanding of her Jewish roots, and invited the Pulitzer Prize-winning composer David Lang to collaborate. It should surprise no one that their Song of Songs, which has just played at the Read more ...
Demetrios Matheou
Poor Things, Yorgos Lanthimos’s follow-up to The Favourite, is an intoxicating achievement, a ravishing, twisted, very funny and even radical fable that must be a major contender in the awards season that gets into gear as the London Film Festival closes. The Favourite screenwriter Tony McNamara has adapted the late Scottish writer Alasdair Gray’s complex, multi-layered novel, removing the 1990s storyline, focussing on the Victorian section and shifting the point of view entirely to Gray’s fabulous heroine, Bella Baxter (Emma Stone). He’s also removed the Read more ...